


A Love of Ashes, Burning

by Ferith12



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:21:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27802210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ferith12/pseuds/Ferith12
Summary: In after years, in days of men when elves are fading, historians looking back sometimes call Feanor a monster, and sometimes a tragic hero.  Often they paint him as a father who loved his children too little or too harshly.  Often they imagine he must never have been soft, must never have been quiet, that he never quite knew the correct way to love in the peace of his home.This is a pretty lie.
Relationships: Fëanor | Curufinwë & Sons of Fëanor, Fëanor | Curufinwë/Nerdanel
Comments: 8
Kudos: 52





	A Love of Ashes, Burning

In after years, in days of men when elves are fading, historians looking back sometimes call Feanor a monster, and sometimes a tragic hero. Often they paint him as a father who loved his children too little or too harshly. Often they imagine he must never have been soft, must never have been quiet, that he never quite knew the correct way to love in the peace of his home.

This is a pretty lie.

Feanor loved his silmarils like the sun at midday, like a wildfire roaring, like ice that cracks stones unpityingly to pieces.

Feanor loved his sons like a father loves his children.

What other metaphor can compare to that?

With his half-brother Feanor was cruel, with his elders he was petulant, with the rest of the population he was proud and arrogant and scornful with enough skill and power and general magnetism not to be loathed.

But with his wife he was loving, with his children he was patient and kind and soft, and his laughter was quick and bright and his smiles were frequent and beautiful to look upon.

(When Feanor and Nerdanel became estranged, it was because Nerdanel estranged them. It was not because Feanor mistreated her in any way. Feanor was never a bad husband, and Nerdanel had no grudge with him for herself, but he was not a good  _ person _ and in the end, Nerdanel could not love him, or more truly, could not  _ support  _ him if his kindness extended only to herself and her children and his father. Feanor never understood this, his children did not understand until they were older.)

When Maedhros showed no interest or proficiency with smithcraft, or indeed any other art of making, Feanor did not mind it, and was proud of his son in the quiet way of good fathers who do not demand anything of their children but that they are. When Maglor showed a talent only in music (and in that a talent never before seen among the noldor) Feanor put aside his hatred a little for the love of his son, and found for him tutors from among the Teleri and the Vanyar.

This is the texture of the past.

Can you not feel it? Can you not taste it? 

It is bitter on the tongue, beyond the smoke of burning.

Truth is so much uglier, so much less kind, so much messier than the stories we tell ourselves, than the straight lines and clean threads of histories.

Feanor loved his sons well, and he loved his silmarils badly (and he loved his father jealously, because his father had loved Feanor as Feanor loved his silmarils, far too much and not nearly well enough), and he loved the rest of the world too little, and nothing of this is simple, thusly are the children of Iluvatar made.

And so Feanor swore an oath, and his sons leapt up to swear it with him. And they swore because they loved him, because their love was without ends and without limits, because that was the love he had taught to them, good love, generous love, love that Eru grants his children to give because it is the surest resonance of the eternal, most beautiful music.

Feanor’s children did not swear because they feared him, they did not swear because he had taught them not to think of themselves, they did not swear because they were cowed or enthralled, they swore because they loved.

That is the ugliness. That is the horror. That is the truth.

And in that moment, as Feanor looked at his sons with pride, he had two loves in his heart. One was his love for his sons, and it was warm and whole, and one was his love for himself and for his silmarils, and it was twisted, and in that moment the twisted love shone brighter.

This is the truth that Nerdanel knew, that neither her husband nor her sons could see until it was too late: you cannot be a good husband, a good father, and a bad person. The roads of kindness and selfishness follow different courses, and you cannot hold to one with your right foot while following the other with your left. In the end there is conflict. Feanor’s silmarils, in the end, shone for him more brightly than his children. And so he led them into ruin.

Can you not smell it, the burning?

Those historians of later days often ask, “When was the fall of Feanor?”

A fall is a gradual thing, and for Feanor perhaps it began even in childhood. But there is one moment when his fall was complete.

It was not the swearing of the oath.

It was not the kinslaying at Alqualonde.

It was not the burning of the ships.

As Feanor lay dying, he burned, and all his sons stood around him, their love as great and steadfast as the seas which never dry or drain away. Feanor lay dying with his sons around him, and he did not see them at all.

And there, in that moment, before his spirit consumed him, he saw the world as it would be, laid out in the clarity of death. And he understood how futile his vengeance was, and he saw how it would destroy his children. And his heart was filled with hate, and he cared nothing, nothing for the happiness of his sons.

He made them swear again.

Knowing that it would kill them, body and heart and soul.

He did not care.

How much farther could a father fall?

Many years later, near the end of the sons of Feanor, a child, kidnapped and adopted by two sons who knew how to love sons well, will ask, “What was Feanor like?”

“He loved us,” Maglor will say, because that is a truth and it is simple. And then he will add, “He was a monster,” because that is also nearly truth, and it is the story that the sons of Elwing and Earendil should be told.

“He was brilliant,” Maedhros will say, “He burned. I think in the end it burned out the heart of him.”

(And in the dark, when the boys are asleep, Maglor will turn to Maedhros and say, “I thought I was the one who spoke poetry.”

“It isn’t poetry,” Maedhros will say, “It is far too ugly for that.”

And Maglor will think about words and think about burning, and he will think how it is Maedhros, out of all of them, who burns most like their father. But he will think that Maedhros will burn until his heart is all that is left of him.)


End file.
